Electronic games have become increasingly popular in recent decades. Various types of electronic games have demonstrated strong or very strong market growth over time, such as First Person Shooter (FPS) games and Internet-based massively multiplayer online (MMO) games. These types of games as well as other types of types of electronic games are expected to demonstrate continued strong market growth in the foreseeable future.
During the execution of an application program corresponding to a game, a visual interface that provides game-related visual content is presented or displayed to a user, player, or gamer. Depending upon a game application program under consideration, the visual interface can include visual representations of scenes corresponding to a particular game environment in which game play is currently occurring; current interactions between game characters; currently relevant game related information (e.g., character status or attributes, or visual or virtual environment maps); and messages directed to the user. A visual interface can further include visual representations of particular types of game related functions or operations that are currently available for user selection. As the context, status, or state of an electronic game evolves over time in association with user input and game application program execution, visual interface content should adaptively indicate current game context, status, or state at any given moment. That is, visual interface content should be appropriately and dynamically updated such that it visually conveys the current game environment, current interactions between game characters, current game related information, and currently relevant (e.g., strategically or tactically relevant) game related functions or operations that are available for user selection.
As technology has evolved, electronic games and the visual interfaces associated therewith have become increasingly complex. For example, the types of visual environments in which game play can occur; the types of game characters and the manners in such characters can act and/or interact; the types of game related information that can be provided to the user; and the types of user selectable game related functions or operations that can be of situational value have increased and/or become more complex or intricate. Unfortunately, manners in which conventional systems, apparatuses, devices, and techniques for providing visual interface content adapt such content to evolving game context, status, or state are undesirably limited, inefficient, or cumbersome. Additionally, conventional systems, apparatuses, devices, and techniques for tailoring or increasing the number of game related application functions provided for user selection, such as game specific keyboards that provide a customized set of user selectable keys or buttons corresponding to a particular game application program, are inflexible with respect to their ability to adapt to different types and/or or increased numbers of user selectable functions across different game application programs (including different generations of the same game).
In addition to the foregoing, the increasing complexity and graphical details of many games and the sheer amount of visual information that can be generated corresponding to user interaction with an virtual environment has resulted in the display of increasing amounts and/or types of visual interface content during game play, which can result in visual interface content that appears cluttered, confusing, visually distracting, or difficult to interpret or decipher, which can adversely impact the user's visual experience, user input accuracy, and/or user efficiency in interacting with a game application program.
Accordingly, improved systems, apparatuses, devices, methods, and/or techniques are needed for presenting visual interface content to the user and adaptively updating visual interface content in a manner that can enhance a user's visual experience, increase the efficiency of user interaction with a game application program, and/or increase the number and/or types of game application related functions or operations that are available for user selection at one or more times.